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Post by AudioHTIT on Nov 8, 2018 22:01:22 GMT -5
Wow - I new Apple Mac's were expensive, but I almost fainted when I saw a price. An additional $600 to go to 32Gb of memory is insane. And I just bought a really nice 2Tb SSD for my Windows PC - cost me about $350, not $1600! Seriously - Windows 10 is a solid operating system - Unless you're using Quark or another product that works better on a Mac, I can't see how the cost difference would be justified. If you followed the discussion above you see that there are less expensive ways to equip a Mac mini, but that’s really irrelevant. People buy Apple products for a variety of reasons beyond price; build quality, innovative features, macOS / iOS, the interaction of Apple products in their ecosystem, distinctive styling, stability, fewer viruses, whatever. It’s fine if you don’t value these things, but then maybe we should all just buy Onkyo receivers because their specs are pretty good and they’re a lot cheaper than an XMC-1 and a power amp. Windows is fine, and there are lots of other good hardware choices, obviously most do choose Windows as I think they have close to 90% of the market (though a Linux guy would probably say it’s too expensive). It’s good we all have choices. |
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Post by wilburthegoose on Nov 9, 2018 7:50:21 GMT -5
Absolutely right! Choice is key
I just think that Apple would make a LOT more money if they priced the iMac more competitively. Of course, with a higher number of iMacs out there, the bad guys will go after them.
Granted, their software architecture makes them a harder target, but Windows 10 is a much more difficult to hack than Windows 7.
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Post by creimes on Nov 9, 2018 10:07:38 GMT -5
I just love the blatant exorbitant pricing of the upgrades you can add, I understand how the ones wanting the Mac are the ones buying the Mac, one of the best marketed companies is Apple, they know that you know what the actual real world pricing is of the hardware upgrades but they also know that the people(some) will pay it haha.
I love my Mini but yowzers me ain't rich enough to keep up with the Apple pricing structure, if money was no object what would I care if I had to pay 3 times the actual cost of something lol.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Nov 9, 2018 13:02:22 GMT -5
When it comes to desktop and laptop computers Apple holds about 9% of the market - by sales. By usage, APple seems to hold between 4% and 8% - the numbers vary depending on exactly how they are determined.
As for "desktop operating systems in use":
This one is about a year old:
Wow - I new Apple Mac's were expensive, but I almost fainted when I saw a price. An additional $600 to go to 32Gb of memory is insane. And I just bought a really nice 2Tb SSD for my Windows PC - cost me about $350, not $1600! Seriously - Windows 10 is a solid operating system - Unless you're using Quark or another product that works better on a Mac, I can't see how the cost difference would be justified. If you followed the discussion above you see that there are less expensive ways to equip a Mac mini, but that’s really irrelevant. People buy Apple products for a variety of reasons beyond price; build quality, innovative features, macOS / iOS, the interaction of Apple products in their ecosystem, distinctive styling, stability, fewer viruses, whatever. It’s fine if you don’t value these things, but then maybe we should all just buy Onkyo receivers because their specs are pretty good and they’re a lot cheaper than an XMC-1 and a power amp. Windows is fine, and there are lots of other good hardware choices, obviously most do choose Windows as I think they have close to 90% of the market (though a Linux guy would probably say it’s too expensive). It’s good we all have choices. |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Nov 9, 2018 13:03:44 GMT -5
Don't forget that Linux is free... but you usually get Windows thrown in when you buy the computer anyway. Wow - I new Apple Mac's were expensive, but I almost fainted when I saw a price. An additional $600 to go to 32Gb of memory is insane. And I just bought a really nice 2Tb SSD for my Windows PC - cost me about $350, not $1600! Seriously - Windows 10 is a solid operating system - Unless you're using Quark or another product that works better on a Mac, I can't see how the cost difference would be justified. If you followed the discussion above you see that there are less expensive ways to equip a Mac mini, but that’s really irrelevant. People buy Apple products for a variety of reasons beyond price; build quality, innovative features, macOS / iOS, the interaction of Apple products in their ecosystem, distinctive styling, stability, fewer viruses, whatever. It’s fine if you don’t value these things, but then maybe we should all just buy Onkyo receivers because their specs are pretty good and they’re a lot cheaper than an XMC-1 and a power amp. Windows is fine, and there are lots of other good hardware choices, obviously most do choose Windows as I think they have close to 90% of the market (though a Linux guy would probably say it’s too expensive). It’s good we all have choices. |
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Post by Casey Leedom on Nov 9, 2018 13:10:09 GMT -5
While I'm generally a fan of Apple products for their UI, I can't see buying a Mac OS system as a server. Just a year ago I built out an absurdly over-the-top performance AMD Ryzen 1500X-based server with 32GB of 2667MHz RAM, a stupidly fast 512GB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe root disk and a 7200RPM 8TB Western Digital Black disk for my music collection. All just to run a Roon server for the most part. Absolute overkill. But all of the above, including assembly charges, tax, etc. was only $1,600. You can't get a Mac Mini anywhere near those performance figures (and again, it was overkill and unnecessary, but I'm like that) ... and even if you could, it would cost twice as much ...
Casey
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Post by millst on Nov 9, 2018 16:16:07 GMT -5
Complaining about Apple hardware pricing is dumb. Of course, the margin on hardware is high. You're paying for the ecosystem. If you don't like it, you're free to go with Windows or Linux [or Hackintosh]. You may also get what you pay for...
-tm
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Post by AudioHTIT on Nov 9, 2018 17:33:35 GMT -5
Absolutely right! Choice is key I just think that Apple would make a LOT more money if they priced the iMac more competitively. Of course, with a higher number of iMacs out there, the bad guys will go after them. Granted, their software architecture makes them a harder target, but Windows 10 is a much more difficult to hack than Windows 7. I would like to see a lower cost option as well, though the 2014 mini went down in price and wasn’t well received because of the soldered memory and lower core count. I think a hybrid somewhere between an AppleTV and a Mini might be cool; HMDI, USB-C, BT Mouse & Keyboard, maybe a 3.5 analog/digital connector, Apps from the Apps Store, maybe tvOS but you’d need to be able to make an iTunes music server out of it. Something around $500 would be nice. |
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Post by AudioHTIT on Nov 10, 2018 5:16:31 GMT -5
While I'm generally a fan of Apple products for their UI, I can't see buying a Mac OS system as a server. Just a year ago I built out an absurdly over-the-top performance AMD Ryzen 1500X-based server with 32GB of 2667MHz RAM, a stupidly fast 512GB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe root disk and a 7200RPM 8TB Western Digital Black disk for my music collection. All just to run a Roon server for the most part. Absolute overkill. But all of the above, including assembly charges, tax, etc. was only $1,600. You can't get a Mac Mini anywhere near those performance figures (and again, it was overkill and unnecessary, but I'm like that) ... and even if you could, it would cost twice as much ... Casey But of course people here might be more inclined research parts and to build a computer from scratch, it would be interesting to know what % of the market actually does that. I’d expect many Mac buyers wouldn’t even upgrade memory because it requires opening the case, and Apple is taking advantage of that mentality. I got to the point where I could replace a drive in a mini without watching the ifixit video, but it requires much more attention to detail and patience than working with a PC case that’s designed to be opened and upgraded by the end user. But to your point, I think it might depend on what your definition of server is, for you just Roon, for the Apple crowd probably iTunes, and for some, videos and other basic fileserver functions. And then to build your own you have to be comfortable not only building, but purchasing, installing, and configuring Windows or maybe Linux, so you’ve reduced the audience even further. I think PC or Mac you could always buy components that would outperform the off the shelf configurations, but many still want to buy a box that just works. |
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Post by AudioHTIT on Nov 10, 2018 5:24:20 GMT -5
Don't forget that Linux is free... but you usually get Windows thrown in when you buy the computer anyway. If you followed the discussion above you see that there are less expensive ways to equip a Mac mini, but that’s really irrelevant. People buy Apple products for a variety of reasons beyond price; build quality, innovative features, macOS / iOS, the interaction of Apple products in their ecosystem, distinctive styling, stability, fewer viruses, whatever. It’s fine if you don’t value these things, but then maybe we should all just buy Onkyo receivers because their specs are pretty good and they’re a lot cheaper than an XMC-1 and a power amp. Windows is fine, and there are lots of other good hardware choices, obviously most do choose Windows as I think they have close to 90% of the market (though a Linux guy would probably say it’s too expensive). It’s good we all have choices. To me that’s kind of like saying “but hey, they usually throw a hard drive in the box when you buy the computer”. I’m sure Microsoft has very good pricing for volume buyers like Dell and HP, but Windows still is not free and and makes up some part of the cost you pay when you buy a computer off the shelf (possibly as much as a typical hard drive). |
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Post by audiobill on Nov 10, 2018 5:28:44 GMT -5
Apple, as the most valuable company on earth, didn't get there by not understanding their customers, marketing, design and technology. If you were an aspiring new engineer from Stanford, where would you choose to work?  |
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Post by Casey Leedom on Nov 10, 2018 15:35:04 GMT -5
While I'm generally a fan of Apple products for their UI, I can't see buying a Mac OS system as a server. Just a year ago I built out an absurdly over-the-top performance AMD Ryzen 1500X-based server with 32GB of 2667MHz RAM, a stupidly fast 512GB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe root disk and a 7200RPM 8TB Western Digital Black disk for my music collection. All just to run a Roon server for the most part. Absolute overkill. But all of the above, including assembly charges, tax, etc. was only $1,600. You can't get a Mac Mini anywhere near those performance figures (and again, it was overkill and unnecessary, but I'm like that) ... and even if you could, it would cost twice as much ... But of course people here might be more inclined research parts and to build a computer from scratch, it would be interesting to know what % of the market actually does that. I’d expect many Mac buyers wouldn’t even upgrade memory because it requires opening the case, and Apple is taking advantage of that mentality. I got to the point where I could replace a drive in a mini without watching the ifixit video, but it requires much more attention to detail and patience than working with a PC case that’s designed to be opened and upgraded by the end user. But to your point, I think it might depend on what your definition of server is, for you just Roon, for the Apple crowd probably iTunes, and for some, videos and other basic fileserver functions. And then to build your own you have to be comfortable not only building, but purchasing, installing, and configuring Windows or maybe Linux, so you’ve reduced the audience even further. I think PC or Mac you could always buy components that would outperform the off the shelf configurations, but many still want to buy a box that just works. Yeah, and I totally get that. A lot of people just want to uy something that works out of the box without any thought. Heck, I want that! But it's like buying wine at a restaurant: I expect their to be some uplift on the price of the same wine I could uy more cheaply at the store, but if the uplift is obscene, my experience starts being ruined with resentment. I'm good with a 25% uplift, but a 100%+ surcharge, not so much. And again, note that I do like Apple products and I hate having to administer a Linux system "just for fun" (and honestly I'd prefer a FreeBSD system given my background), but at some point I do have to pay attention to the cost/benefit analysis ... Casey |
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Post by geeqner on Nov 13, 2018 14:36:47 GMT -5
I think that the "Apple vs. Windows thing" really tends to come down to the types of customers who typically buy their products:
It seems that Apple is really strong with "Artsy" types (Computer Graphics / Artwork, Computer Music people, photographers, writers, teachers). People with Art or Liberal Arts backgrounds. I don't want to over-stereotype things, but "On the average" - people with that mindset are more "non-techie". When it comes to computers - they typically want to BUY the thing and USE it without really having to understand the inner workings of it.
They tend to seek simplicity / ease-of-use and want to USE it and have minimal need to mess with it. I think that having Linux at the core of the OS really helps in reliability and concerns about backwards-compatibility with software etc. Apple seems to charge more for what you get (probably due to more money spent on DESIGN / "sweating the details" and lower production volume). Those who like their stuff seem to be VERY loyal.
Techie types seem to prefer the customization and versatility (ability to "configure it the way you WANT or LIKE it") of the more-mainstream Windows / Intel-AMD platform.
Those who want "cheap" can also save money in the Windows / Intel-AMD platform by virtue of the greater variety of configurations and mass-production quantity.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Nov 13, 2018 16:44:47 GMT -5
Quite true.....
Also, to be fair, Windows is starting to seem more like what many people don't like about Apple (fewer choices, more of them made without asking you).... And Apple computers are getting more like Windows (more worries about compatibility, no more "any program runs on any Apple computer").... And desktop computers in general are disappearing and being replaced by tablets and phones...
Even though they're pretty similar internally... both Apple and Windows are unique enough that either seems totally alien to someone raised on the other  .
Apple currently holds about 8-10% of the desktop computer market... depending on who you ask and how you count.
I think that the "Apple vs. Windows thing" really tends to come down to the types of customers who typically buy their products: It seems that Apple is really strong with "Artsy" types (Computer Graphics / Artwork, Computer Music people, photographers, writers, teachers). People with Art or Liberal Arts backgrounds. I don't want to over-stereotype things, but "On the average" - people with that mindset are more "non-techie". When it comes to computers - they typically want to BUY the thing and USE it without really having to understand the inner workings of it. They tend to seek simplicity / ease-of-use and want to USE it and have minimal need to mess with it. I think that having Linux at the core of the OS really helps in reliability and concerns about backwards-compatibility with software etc. Apple seems to charge more for what you get (probably due to more money spent on DESIGN / "sweating the details" and lower production volume). Those who like their stuff seem to be VERY loyal. Techie types seem to prefer the customization and versatility (ability to "configure it the way you WANT or LIKE it") of the more-mainstream Windows / Intel-AMD platform. Those who want "cheap" can also save money in the Windows / Intel-AMD platform by virtue of the greater variety of configurations and mass-production quantity. |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Nov 13, 2018 16:52:46 GMT -5
The reality is that Windows makes up a VERY small part of the price of a computer when you buy it. They throw it in with a $200 laptop... but you rarely have the option of leaving it out and getting the money instead. Tell Dell you're going to use Linux, and ask how much they'll cut off the price if you leave Windows off.....
(My guess is that it costs your vendor between $10 and $20 for a single copy of Windows 10 Home on a computer.)
I believe that Apple doesn't charge much for their O/S either.
I should also note that MOST people find what they're used to "easier" and other products to "make less sense". I'm not especially fond of Windows 10, but I don't find the latest MAC/OS to be any "simpler" or "more intuitive".
(Yeah, it's really intuitive to look for USB audio settings under the MIDI panel.... uh huh......... )
Don't forget that Linux is free... but you usually get Windows thrown in when you buy the computer anyway. To me that’s kind of like saying “but hey, they usually throw a hard drive in the box when you buy the computer”. I’m sure Microsoft has very good pricing for volume buyers like Dell and HP, but Windows still is not free and and makes up some part of the cost you pay when you buy a computer off the shelf (possibly as much as a typical hard drive). |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Nov 13, 2018 16:54:32 GMT -5
Well, certainly NOT for Apple's "desktop computer" division..... As you say, Apple knows their customers, and they seem to be leading the charge OUT of the desktop computer business.
Apple, as the most valuable company on earth, didn't get there by not understanding their customers, marketing, design and technology. If you were an aspiring new engineer from Stanford, where would you choose to work? |
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Post by Loop 7 on Nov 13, 2018 18:35:41 GMT -5
I'm really used to the Mac OS and have not used Windows since 2007 so I would need to adapt if an employer ruled a Mac out but I've been lucky (or pushy) thus far. A friend of mine has never used the Mac OS and Windows is extremely second nature for him. So, yes, I'm a Mac OS fan boy BUT I'm an Android fan boy as well. wilburthegoose agree completely about the ridiculous pricing for memory. Most Apple hardware is definitely overpriced so I buy refurbished or used. |
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Post by Gary Cook on Nov 13, 2018 18:50:36 GMT -5
With my current MacMini I ordered it online, it arrived the next day, I just took it out of the box, plugged it in, turned it on, told it my iCloud/iTunes password and it just worked from then on. I did upgrade the RAM, but that was too easy, just followed the video online. Since then I've change monitors, printers, keyboards, DAC's (there's an Ego connected now), EHDD's, wifi modems etc plus updated the OS and Apps (many times over) all without expending any money (on the MacMini itself), with very little effort, no expertise required and no issues encountered. Compared to my work PC which has been a right royal pain the ass far too many times, with botched updates, poor customer service (hardware and software), not talking to monitors, time wasted downloading patches, new hardware requirements (Oh, that version of Windows doesn't work with that version of hardware), virus issues and the ever so so sloooooooow response on Windoze 10. There is simply no comparison and no way in hell that I'd have my home entertainment anywhere near a PC  Cheers Gary |
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Post by AudioHTIT on Nov 13, 2018 19:53:01 GMT -5
Well, Apple’s doing something right, no one seems to start any threads about the the new HP, Dell, or <insert your favorite PC here>, but start one about an Apple product and people come out of the wings to try and detract from it. 🤔🙂😎
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Post by creimes on Nov 14, 2018 1:23:14 GMT -5
Well, Apple’s doing something right, no one seems to start any threads about the the new HP, Dell, or <insert your favorite PC here>, but start one about an Apple product and people come out of the wings to try and detract from it. 🤔🙂😎 The only good PC is the one you build yourself haha, I love my Mini I just hate the prices, rarely do you hear the ones with money having an issue with the pricing structure, heck neither would I if I was loaded lol. |
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